Tag: Bill Sharman

Celtics announce all 15 members of All-Celtics roster for NBA’s 75th anniversary celebration

The Celtics released all 15 players for their all-time great Celtics list in honor of the league’s 75th-birthday celebrations.

The Boston Celtics are a founding member of the Basketball Association of America (BAA), the league that would one day call itself the NBA of today, and have thus been a prominent franchise in the league’s 75th-anniversary celebrations throughout the 2021-22 NBA season so far.

One of several such ways the Celtics have helped commemorate the league reaching its’ three-quarter century mark has been their slow reveal of their 15-man all-time team of the greatest players to don the green and white for Boston, done in three installments of five players each over the course of the last two weeks.

Selected by a panel of experts and historians, the Celtics released the final, full 15-player roster on Thursday afternoon along with a press release detailing all aspects of the team.

On this day: Bird gets dually honored; Naismith publishes 1st rules

On this day in Celtics history, Larry Bird won two prestigious media awards, and basketball inventor James Naismith published the sport’s original 13 rules.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, legendary small forward Larry Bird was honored with being awarded both Man of the Year by the Sporting News and Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in 1987.

It was the first time in history any athlete of any sport had won both awards at the same time in the same year. The honor for the Hick from French Lick (as Bird was sometimes called) happened at the apex of his prime years. It may even have been a bit of a jinx if you believe in that sort of thing.

The dual honor ended up being the first time in five seasons the Celtics did not make it to the NBA Finals in the Playoffs.

NBA continues reveal of 75 greatest player list; 7 Boston Celtics represented

The storied franchise is well-represented on the 75th-anniversary list.

The Boston Celtics continue among the best-represented teams on the NBA’s commemorative list of the 75 greatest players in as many years. The league is publishing the list as part of the hype of it reaching the three-quarter century mark, and it is doing so in three 25-player bursts.

On the second day of the league’s celebratory listmaking reveal, the Celtics find themselves with seven players selected from their historic rosters. Boston dominated the 50th-anniversary list a quarter-century ago and seems poised to have a similar proportion of players once the whole list has been released.

Let’s take a look at which Celtics made the second 25-player list.

Boston Celtics all-time roster: See which legends made the cut

In honor of the NBA’s 75th anniversary, we present the best rosters in Celtics history drawn from every era.

In honor of the 75 years the Boston Celtics have been a foundational part of the league they helped shepherd from its days as the Basketball Association of America, the predecessor league it was formed from, we at the Celtics Wire decided to try our own hand at the many lists of players being commemorated as part of the Association hitting the three-quarters century mark.

To that end, we have put together not just one but four all-time Celtics teams, featuring our Honorable Mention team along with First, Second, and Third team honors. It is a veritable ‘who’s who’ of iconic Boston players — and each team has a head coach drawn from the greatest the Celtics have to offer in that regard.

The criteria for ranking is a subjective mixture of what each player did as a Celtic and how good of a player they were in their era. With this in mind, if you disagree with our rankings, that’s likely why. So without further ado — here are our teams.

On this day: former Boston player, coach, GM Carr waived; Heinsohn, Sharman jerseys retired

On this day in Celtics history, ML Carr was waived, and Tommy Heinsohn and Bill Sharman had their jerseys retired.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, Celtics small forward and later head coach and general manager Michael Leon Carr (more often known as “M.L.”) was waived by the team he would one day head — but not on that day in 1974.

Carr, a native of Wallace, North Carolina, would play his college ball with the Guilford College Quakers, a Division III program in Greensboro, North Carolina. Despite the Division III status of his school, Carr managed to get selected 76th overall (there were several more rounds to the NBA draft in that era) by the then-Kansas City/Omaha Kings (now, Sacramento) in the 1973 NBA draft.

But, Carr fared better in the rival American Basketball Association (ABA) draft of that same year.

What Celtics from the NBA’s 50th anniversary All-Time list might not make the 75th?

A number of those who made the cut 25 years ago might not make the NBA’s 75th-anniversary list.

With the arrival of the NBA’s and the Boston Celtics‘ 75th anniversary season comes the expansion of the list of the 50 greatest players in NBA history released for the league’s commemorations festivities for hitting its half-century mark of existence.

As one might expect, the new list will have 75 players representing the NBA’s best players over the course of its 75 years of history. But there is no guarantee that having made it in at the 50-year mark means that a player will make it onto this expanded list. In fact, there are a number of Celtics who are in danger of being cut in light of previous snubs and more recent achievements.

Let’s take a look at who might not make the cut of the Boston players who populated the 50th-anniversary list.

How many of the NBA’s official 50 greatest in 1996 were Boston Celtics?

In 1996, the NBA released a list of its 50 greatest players up to that year to celebrate as many years of play as a league. Can you guess them all?

In 1996, the NBA decided to assemble a panel of 50 players, media members, and team representatives in total to select the 50 greatest players of the league’s first 50 years on the anniversary of the NBA’s first season of 1946-47.

The league again plans to assemble a similar list to honor the 75th anniversary of its foundation in 2021, but before we begin to speculate which alumni of the Boston Celtics will be added to the list, let’s take a look at the old one. Dominated by names once populating the championship eras of the team from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, a total of 14 of the NBA’s 50 greatest players once donned the green and white.

Let’s review who made the cut, and when they were Celtics.

WATCH: Boston Celtics Red Auerbach, Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman take on MLB’s Braves – in sports trivia

Watch three Celtics try to best three Braves on a popular 1970s sports trivia game show.

We might have broken a few brains when we revealed that the Boston Celtics beat the Washington Senators (or rather a trio of representatives from each team) once on a sports-themed game show hailing from the early 1970s, but the Celtics seemed to turn everything they touched to gold back in those days.

It wasn’t the only appearance for Boston on the show — called “Sports Challenge” — either. Within a year of the win by Bill Russell, John Havlicek, and Red Auerbach, another trio of Celtics made an appearance on the show. Auerbach returned with champion Celtics Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman to face off against three stars of the then recently-relocated Atlanta (previously of Milwaukee) Braves MLB team, though we won’t give away the ending this time for the curious among you.

Watch the clip for yourself to see how the Celtics did their second time on the show courtesy of the CLNS Media YouTube channel “NBA History and Legends on CLNS”.

This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire. Follow us on Facebook!

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On this day: Jones, Sharman born; Pierce leads 21-point rally vs. Nets

On this day, Boston Celtics guard legends K.C. Jones and Bill Sharman were born, and Paul Pierce almost single-handedly beat the Nets in 2002.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, point guard legend K. C. Jones was born in 1932 in Taylor, Texas. Jones played his college ball with fellow Celtics legend Bill Russell at the University of San Francisco, and was taken in the same draft as Russell by the Celtics with the 13th overall pick of the 1956 NBA draft.

The Texan guard would go on to win eight championships with Boston, the only club he played for over a nine-season playing career in the NBA. He would average 7.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game with the Celtics. He would also win two titles with the team as a head coach in the 1980s.

Jones would be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 1989.

On this day: Jones, Sharman born; Pierce leads 21-point rally vs. Nets

On this day, Boston Celtics guard legends K.C. Jones and Bill Sharman were born, and Paul Pierce almost single-handedly beat the Nets in 2002.

On this day, Boston Celtics point guard legend K. C. Jones was born in 1932 in Taylor, Texas.

Jones played his college ball with fellow Celtics legend Bill Russell at the University of San Francisco, and was drafted along with Russell by the Celtics with the 13th overall pick of the 1956 NBA Draft.

The Texan guard would go on to win eight championships with Boston, the only club he played for over a nine season playing career.

He would average 7.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game with the Celtics, and would be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 1989.

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